John Piper Shares "Things I Have Learned"


1. The right road always leads to the right place; therefore, get on the right road and go as far as you can on it.

2. There is only one thing to do about anything; that is the right thing. Do right.

3. Happiness is not found by looking for it. You stumble over happiness on the road to duty.

4. The door to success swings on the hinges of opposition.

5. God in the right place in my life fixes every other relationship of life (Matthew 6:33).

6. It is never right to get the right thing in the wrong way — like good grades, wealth, power, position. Don't sacrifice your principles.

7. It is a sin to do less than your best. It is wrong to do [merely] well.

8. It is wrong to be yoked to one who refuses the yoke of Christ. 
  
9. The part of your character that is deficient is the part that needs attention.

10. Don't quit. Finish the job. God can't use a quitter.

11. Anything you do that hinders your progress for God is wrong.

12. Beware of any society in which you feel compelled to put a bushel over your testimony.

13. It isn't enough to be good. Be good for something. The essence of Christianity is not a passionless purity.

14. Positive living produces negative effect[s].

15. Learn to be sweetly firm.

  

 With abiding and deep thankfulness for my father's wisdom,
Pastor John

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.

Please Don't Get Stupid!

From Charisma Magazine-"10 more stupid things ministers should never do".

1. Abuse the sheep.

2. Water down the gospel.

3. Refuse to release people into ministry.

4. Focus on gimmicks and programs rather than people.

5. Ignore evangelism.

6. Refuse to network with other leaders.

7. Failure to make prayer a priority.

8. Overemphasizing spiritual warfare teaching.

9. Quenching the Holy Spirit.

10. Burning out.

http://www.charismamag.com/blogs/the-plumb-line/16052-10-more-stupid-things-ministers-should-never-do

Leading A Ministry Team Of Friends

Here is a great article posted by Confluence,a Newfrontiers blog particularly for those of a reformed and charismatic perspective with a commitment to global mission.

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"God is the God of unity in three persons. Within the Godhead is a flow of love and unity with and an absence of competition and jealousy. From among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit comes action to extend this fellowship of love to all creation.

Reflecting the Trinity, team-led churches are participatory and relational. Teams are comprised of people who are respected and gifted for service. Working together, they collectively pool their gifts for a single purpose. They are not a collection of individuals but a group working together collectively.

The Team Leader

The team leader has a key role in bringing the team together relationally as participators in the vision and mission. The team leader is not the “big banana” over all the “lesser bananas.” Indeed, the team leader’s task is not to shape the other team members into his own image but to help facilitate relationship, love and commitment among the team. He takes responsibility to ensure the team members build relationships with one another and not just with him. Some ways to facilitate this include retreats, lunches, team-building exercises, vision “jam sessions”, as well as praying and playing together. Relationships within the team are built on trust, which requires time together.

A principal goal to create a participatory team means the team leader takes responsibility to initiate a team process that results in giving away responsibility. The successful team leader has an attitude that they do not need to make all the key decisions nor assign all the key jobs. The team member knows that they don’t know all the answers and that each one needs the other members of the team. The team leader will draw out team member's feelings and frustration. There needs be a vulnerability and honesty. Building this kind of team requires energy, nurturing, maintaining relationships and a significant investment of time. As with any valuable endeavor, true friendship is worth the effort as it reflects the loving God we serve."

http://www.confluenceblog.com/building-team-on-friendship?utm

Four Rules For Minister's

Phillip Brooks—one of the great American preachers of the 19th century—offered this counsel in his Bohlen Lectures on Preaching delivered before the Divinity School of Yale College in January/February 1877:

First, count and rejoice to count yourself the servant of the people to whom you minister. Not in any worn-out figure but in very truth, call yourself and be their servant.

Second, never allow yourself to feel equal to your work. If you ever find that spirit growing on you, be afraid, and instantly attack your hardest piece of work, try to convert your toughest infidel, try to preach on your most exacting theme, to show your self how unequal to it all you are.

Third, be profoundly honest. Never dare to say in the pulpit or in private, through ardent excitement or conformity to what you know you are expected to say, one word which at the moment when you say it, you do not believe. It would cut down the range of what you say, perhaps, but it would endow every word that was left with the force of ten.

And last of all, be vital, be alive, not dead. Do everything that can keep your vitality at its fullest. Even the physical vitality do not dare to disregard. One of the most striking preachers of our country seems to me to have a large part of his power simply in his physique, in the impression of vitality, in the magnetism almost like a material thing, that passes between him and the people who sit before him.

Pray for and work for fulness of life above everything; full red blood in the body; full honesty and truth in the mind; and the fulness of a grateful love for the Saviour in your heart. Then, however men set their mark of failure or success upon your ministry, you cannot fail, you must succeed.

Annual Gathering of Reformata Ministers

                   The Majesty and Mystery of the Trinity
                       
                            Keynote Speaker -   Theologian-Pastor Jack Carter
                                                 
                                               Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania
                                                    
                                                       August 9th-12th
                    
                                                            Thursday
                                             3:00pm Afternoon arrivals
                                             6:30pm Dinner and Fellowship


                                                              Friday
                                9:00-9:50am.......................... ...Pastor Jim Crabb
                               10:00-10:50............................ .....Richard Hanner
                               11:00-12:00............................*Pastor Jack Carter


                               2:00-3:00pm...............................Ladies Gathering


                              7:00-8:30pm...........................*Pastor Jack Carter


                                                            Saturday
                               9:00-9:50am...........................................Joe Sacco
                               10:00-10:50...................................Richard Hanner
                               11:00-12:00..............................*Pastor Jack Carter


                               6:30-8:30pm............................*Pastor Jack Carter


                                          [By confirmed Invitation Only]

How We Became A Nation Of Heretics

I recommend that we all consider reading Ross Douthat’s new book, "Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics."

Douthat isn't a "Doctrine Cop", a "Heresy Hunter" or one of todays so called "Discernment Ministries".

As the youngest-ever op-ed columnist for the New York Times, Ross Douthat has emerged as one of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation. In Bad Religion he offers a masterful and hard-hitting account of how American Christianity has gone off the rails—and why it threatens to take American society with it.

Justin Taylor has provided great reviews by Collin Hansen and Tim Keller,  as well as a video of Douthat speaking on the actual content of his new book. 

rgh

...at TGC Collin Hansen has provided a review of the book....the conclusion of Collin’s review:

"Whether Americans realize it or not, the country needs an orthodox, prophetic church. But the church today, bloated by a smorgasbord of heresy, is not fit to fulfill this calling...

 


– Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City
“Bad Religion is superb: sharply critical of the amazing variety of American religious pathologies, but fair; blunt in diagnosis, but just; telling a dark tale, but telling it hopefully. For those trying to understand the last half-century or more of American religion, and to strive for a better future, it is an indispensable book.”


http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/04/13/keller-and-hansen-on-douthats-bad-religion-how-we-became-a-nation-of-heretics/?

Ross Douthat Bio http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=475

John Piper Excommunicates His 19 Year Old Son

In First Timothy 5:21, The Apostle Paul charged the young minister with implementing biblical imperatives without showing partiality or favoritism. In other words, walk it out with integrity.

The Apostles principle of "scriptura suprema" reveals that every  relationship must be subordinate to the Supremacy of Christ and his law-word. This necessarily involves the practice of redemptive rescue through corrective discipline with family members.

John Piper modeled just such character based submission to Christ Lordship by initiating the redemptive process with his 19 year old  son.

What integrity!  What honor!  What nobility!  What virtue!  What courage! Not only that, but notice the honor and respect his son demonstrates to his dad for having biblical integrity.

”I went to the elders and I said to them, ‘Here’s the situation. I think my son needs to be pursued by the elders as far as you can, and then he needs to be excommunicated if he doesn’t respond.’ He was 19 years old….we did follow through with the discipline. And God was merciful.”

Christianity Today Magazine recently interviewed Piper and asked him about the excommunication of his 19 year old son and what the reconciliation process looked like:

".....The night after that excommunication, I called him at 10:00 and said, "Abraham, you knew what was coming."

He said, "That's what I expected you to do. That has integrity. I respect you for doing it." From then on, for the next four years, he was walking away from the Lord, trying to make a name for himself in disco bars as a guitarist and singer, and just doing anything but destroying himself. We were praying like crazy that he wouldn't get somebody pregnant, or marry the wrong person, or whatever. He came back to the Lord four years later and the church had a beautiful, beautiful restoration service. He wept his eyes out in front of the church and was restored. This is church discipline at its best. He wrote an article about it for Decision magazine....."

May the Exalted Christ grant that each of us have the same compassionate courage to walk out the wisdom of God and resist the vain philosophy of fallen man.

rgh



 http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/marchweb-only/john-piper-racism-reconciliation.html?start=3

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/RecentlyAdded/3903

The Value Of Masuline Ministry

This is an extract from John Piper sharing on "The Frank and Masculine J.C.Ryle"

In dealing with the life and ministry of John Charles Ryle, my hope is to clarify and commend what I mean by the value of a masculine ministry. But before we turn to “the frank and manly Mr. Ryle,”1 let me make some clarifying comments from the Bible.

God has revealed himself to us in the Bible pervasively as King, not Queen, and as Father, not Mother. The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son. The Father and the Son created man and woman in his image, and gave them together the name of the man, Adam (Genesis 5:2). God appoints all the priests in Israel to be men. The Son of God comes into the world as a man, not a woman. He chooses twelve men to be his apostles. The apostles tell the churches that all the overseers—the pastor/elders who teach and have authority (1 Timothy 2:12)—should be men; and that in the home, the head who bears special responsibility to lead, protect, and provide should be the husband (Ephesians 5:22–33).

Masculine Christianity

From all of this, I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel. And, being a God of love, he has done it for the maximum flourishing of men and women. He did not create women to languish, or be frustrated, or in any way to suffer or fall short of full and lasting joy, in a masculine Christianity. She is a fellow heir of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7). From which I infer that the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families where Christianity has this God-ordained, masculine feel. For the sake of the glory of women, and for the sake of the security and joy of children, God has made Christianity to have a masculine feel. He has ordained for the church a masculine ministry.

And, of course, this is liable to serious misunderstanding and serious abuse, because there are views of masculinity that would make such a vision repulsive. So here is more precisely what I mean. And words are always inadequate when describing beauty. Beauty always thrives best when she is perceived by God-given instincts rather than by rational definitions. But we must try. What I mean by “masculine Christianity,” or “masculine ministry,” or “Christianity with a masculine feel,” is this:

Theology and church and mission are marked by overarching godly male leadership in the spirit of Christ, with an ethos of tender-hearted strength, and contrite courage, and risk-taking decisiveness, and readiness to sacrifice for the sake of leading, protecting, and providing for the community—all of which is possible only through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s the feel of a great, majestic God, who by his redeeming work in Jesus Christ, inclines men to take humble, Christ-exalting initiative, and inclines women to come alongside the men with joyful support, intelligent helpfulness, and fruitful partnership in the work.

There are, I believe, dozens of sweet and precious benefits that come to a church and family that has this kind of masculine feel. Some of those will emerge as we consider “‘The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle’: The Value of a Masculine Ministry.”

Click in order to watch the video of Piper sharing his Masculine profile of Ryle: John Piper Profile J.C.Ryle

"35 Values I Wish I Had When I Started Pastoring"

[By J.D. Grear]

People ask me what I wish I’d known when I started pastoring. Here are 35 different things. At our church we call them plumblines. Our plumblines serve as guides for decision-making.

1. The gospel is not just the diving board, it’s the pool. Christians gro not by going beyond the gospel, but deeper into the gospel.
2. People are the mission.
3. Jesus commanded us to make disciples, not converts.
4. Discipleship happens in community.
5. God’s strategy for completing the Great Commission is planting churches in strategic cities.
6. The church is God’s demonstration community.
7. The church is God’s plan A.
8. Belief unlocks the power for the mission of God.
9. The church is not an audience; it is an army.
10. The week is more important than the weekend.
11. The best ministry ideas are in the congregation.
12. The Great Commission is completed through multiplication, not addition.
13. Churches should be evaluated by sending capacity, not just seating capacity.
14. Stay where you are; serve where you live; let’s be the church in that community (a value we promote in our multi-site strategy).
15. We multiply congregations, not preaching points (another value for multi-site).
16. Each small group should function like a small congregation.
17. People come because of quality and options; they stay because of personalization.
18. Those who serve are just as important as those you serve.
19. Live sufficiently, give extravagantly.
20. Generosity is contagious, and so is stinginess.
21. The sermon starts in the parking lot.
22. In light of global lostness, excellence must be balanced by “good enough”.
23. Word of mouth is the best advertisement.
24. Just because “we can” doesn’t mean “we should”.
25. Humility is shown by openness to the ideas of others.
26. Believe the best about others.
27. Move with the movers.
28. Nod to fashion; don’t embrace (especially as you age).
29. Preach the announcements (announcements are – or ought to be – how our people apply the mission).
30. Love is the most essential element of leadership.
31. Pushing out leaders creates more leaders.
32. You replicate what you celebrate.
33. It is easier to get 1 volunteer out of 3 than 3000: Make people feel like you are talking to them personally.
34. One size rarely fits all.
35. When I’m sick of saying it, the staff has just heard it. When they’re sick of hearing it, the church has just become aware of it.

http://betweenthetimes.com/2012/03/22/plumblines-35-values-i-wish-i-had-possessed-when-i-started-pastoring-10-years-ago/

11 Questions To Help Discern If We Are Judgemental

These 11 questions cut like a knife as they probed my soul for answers.
Righteous judgment is a wholesome command that we are all called to
relationally walk out with one another, and yet, it can be easy to fall prey
to becoming overly critical in our attitude.

However,  the questions also point to the seriousness of compromised integrity
when we resort to minimizing, rationalizing, jutifying or moralizing the sin in
our own lives.

May the Exalted Christ grant each of us the strength of grace to walk with
integrity with ourselves and others by avoiding these two dangers.

rgh

1. Am I more likely to see the sin in others than my sin?


2. When I pray, am I more likely to pray for God’s judgment
 on others rather than marvel at God’s amazing grace toward me?


3. Am I overly critical toward others while I give myself a pass or
 an excuse and justify my own sin?


4. Does my own sin ever lead me to deep remorse and repentance?


5. Do I have people whom I allow to hold me accountable for my sin
 and unforgiving heart?


6. Do I have a tendency to be unforgiving while expecting others to
 forgive me quickly?


7. Do I find joy in exposing sin in others?


8. Do I find more joy in the “gotcha” moments of exposing sin
 or in sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ?


9. When others see how I deal with people, will they think God
 is mighty to save or that God would never forgive them and there
 is no hope for forgiveness?


10. Do I receive correction humbly?


11. Before I correct others, do I spend time in God’s Word and prayer
 asking the Holy Spirit to expose my sin so that I might repent.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2012/03/15/11-questions-to-discern-a-judgmental-heart/?

This Borders On Witchcraft!

J. lee Grady is a proven discerner of the counterfeit and the frauds
who flow "unchecked" within the charismatic stream. His recent article
is excellent and this quote nails the seriousness of the issue.

rgh

"...The charismatic movement has become an embarrassing mixture.
Some preachers dangle God’s promises over people’s heads and
offer elusive promises of prosperity "if people will call this number
now and give a donation."

Others fake certain body movements to make people think they are
super-charged by God. Others mix exotic anointing oils (on sale now
for only $12.99!) or they create anointed candles, suggesting that certain
scents can trigger the Spirit’s power. This borders on witchcraft."

http://charismanews.com/opinion/32755-please-stop-the-holy-ghost-smackdown

J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma.  He is the author of several
books including 10 Lies Men Believe and The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale.

Does God Really Hate Divorce?

Some will think this post a reaction to the pain our family is undergoing

due to my daughters present divorce process initiated by her

husband who has chosen apostasy to his covenant oath to his wife and children

sworn before Christ in the presence of many witnesses.

However, it is honestly motivated by a recent SBC blog posted on the 20th.

The author does a thorough job pointing out problematic KJV translation of

Malachi 2:16 regarding the issue of divorce.

Does God personally hate divorce?

Does God hate the man is who guilty of divorcing his wife?

Does the man hate his wife when divorcing her?

In other words,who in fact is the subject of hate that Malachi speaks of?

Many credible translations actually reveal it is not God who hates divorce

in this passage, rather, the man who wrongfully divorces his wife is actually

guilty of hate.

Read these translations for motivation to employ Berean Nobility to pursue

your own scholarly exegesis.

I personally believe the Holman translation to be one of the best ever produced.

rgh

Holman Translation:

"If he hates and divorces his wife,” says the LORD God of Israel, “he covers his

garment with injustice,” says the LORD of Hosts. Therefore, watch yourselves

carefully, and do not act treacherously."

New International Version:

“The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the LORD, the God of Israel,

“does violence to the one he should protect,” says the LORD Almighty. So be

 on your guard, and do not be unfaithful."

Contemporary English Version:

"The LORD God All-Powerful of Israel hates anyone who is cruel enough

 to divorce his wife.  So take care never to be unfaithful!"

Wycliff Translation:

"When thou hatest her, leave thou her (not), saith the Lord God of Israel.

Forsooth wickedness shall cover the cloth of him, saith the Lord of hosts;

keep ye your spirit, and do not ye despise. (even if thou hatest her, leave

thou her not, saith the Lord God of Israel. Yea, let his cloak cover his

wickedness, saith the Lord of hosts; so keep ye watch over your spirit,

and do not ye despise her.)"

http://sbcvoices.com/does-malachi-216-condemn-all-divorce/?